Is level#1 in the works? My players are about to get started (or at least they are at the tail end of DCC17, and will soon be ambushed heading to garland's fork....or they will do something unexpected).

I'm currently painting the alternate outside area that is in Saga of the Dragon Cult, but I'm not so sure about doing level-1. I'm not very artistic.

Okay, we are playing a massive variation on Egg OF THE phoenix, one that focuses of the elementals, I was looking for something with an opportunity for an earth elemental temple. This was the mindset when i first looked at the Sunless garden. You know, it is tricky to find a good outdoors module, but this asventure has many thi gs going for it; treants, ettins, purple gems that are tasty for Xorns.

So far, the garden is outdoors in a magnificent section of forrest that has a purple hue. In order to make each special grove as a source for curiosity (i see no other reason why any would enter a grove) the purple gems are actually remnants of a statue that fits together. Together the will fit onto a part of the temple. In our case the temple will be dedicated to Ogremoch.

We are a party of 7; Rng 7, Rng 7/ Dr 1, MU 8, Thf 9, Dr 8, Clr 8, Ftr 8 - I am of old stock and so this is based upon 1st edition, tho I am always open to a good idea no matter what source.

We are campaigning based upon the Egg of the Phoenix, which I think has a wonderful story line but is very poorly presented. The emphasis is upon the return of the Archomentals and so I gear things towards elementals over all.

To the story, we were in NorthEnding having just retrieved the EofP from Sepulcher with a DM enforced three month lay over, what with aging ten years from plane travel. The Egg has successfully gone on to Doc's Island from whence an invite was issued from Doc himself for the party to come and try the Fane of the Egg, a legendary event that compares to Arthur removing Excalibur from the stone: go through the challenge and potentially unlock ancient magic. This will actually be a heavily modified version of the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb from Dungeon 37.

And so the party must travel from NorthEnding to Doc's Island. Along the way they come across a magnificent forest with a section having a purple-ish hue and a strong sense that evil is a force in this forest. This makes the Sunless garden all above ground (there are too few outdoor adventures) and provides the party with a reason to be there.

The individual groves in SG are neat but I could not figure out why anyone would explore such a grove. So, wanting to tie this in with Orgermoch the earth Archomental, I made the purple rocks all part of a statue that broke and the breaking cause them to be littered about. The energy force from the purple rock is what gives each grove a magical purpose. (The party explored and retrieved the six sections which, when they put them together started to sing which is what alerted Nockmort to their presence. Nockmort is now no more)

The six pieces will fit into a great statue thingy that will be found in section B, the Chapel of Entropy, which is the real reason why the party is here. Placing all of the pieces together will call Ogermoch to show up!

The party of 7 (average level is going to put the rings together which will open a gate to the plane of Ogermoch and I do not want Ogermoch to be the first one through. A high level elemental with some nifty skills, like the ability to scoop and hurl earth, will do. Earth quake or tremor would be neat , wherein the Elemental could move freely while the PCs would lose any dex bonus. Also could high level "monsters" attack as many times per round per 50 hit points. So a monster with 200 hp gets four attacks.

The idea was to have the party collect the pieces of purple rock and bring them into the temple. The temple was to be for Ogremoch, the earth Archomental. Collectively it would have been as though there was some type of alter for Ogremoch that some force gave a big kick to, which is why pieces were scattered here and there. In the temple were two piece, four others are what lay about.

I asked the players to envisage the olympic rings, which made it easy for everyone to keep in mind, only this one has six rings, and, you've got four. They were down with that.

We restarted at the doorway to the temple with a bunch of dead bugbear bodies near by. They walked in; the lighting increased and, after a decent check (int + wis + level on percentiles) they noticed a hum from the rings, which were currently in four backpacks on four people. Inner they went; room got warmer, lighting better still. Beasts came out looking, not demented but (hmm) upset. One or two had a hand at their ear. All were dispatched.

There was a tunnel that looked like living quarters, and, greater doors that were clearly temple-ish. At that point one, Embla the dwarf, had the smart idea of taking their rings back outside and burying them in four separate holes. No wait. Let's keep one as a sort of beacon.

Good move, that. I was going to have the floor (plain earth) start to roll and one or two basic earth elementals pop up like zits. As the battle would be going I was going to have them move physically to be in a way that anyone near the two would have their ring pulled through their backpack to join the two. Ultimately, more rings, higher percentile chance of Ogremoch appearing. He was going to be nasty.

But this did not happen. They grabbed the two and, ultimately, decided to be on their way, back off to Doc's Island to run the Fane of the Egg (mud sorcerer's tomb) to see if they could solve that riddle and be the ultimate champions.[how and where could I open a new discussion on playing through the mud sorcerer's tomb?]

Lastly, on the way it happened once. Six people were carrying six rings and just through natural movement, and lack of consideration, the six rings were properly aligned. The characters were frozen and, like a web, a series of lights connected each to the other. Ogremoch appeared, sort of. Do you remember the video chess game they played in the first Star Wars? It was that type of graphics. Ogremoch looked at the party and knew this 'calling' was an accident and would be a problem for him. "I see you,' he said. "This is not cool. I see you and will find you. But not now" and poof, he was gone.

The party smartly decided that one person should carry two rings, thus inhibiting their ability to be so aligned.

I opted to make the Fane of the Egg a challenge that Malodocimus (Doc) the titan had created ages ago to find the ultimate champions. It was easy for my players to grasp once I told them to think of Arthur and excaliber. A challenge they could try only on invite from Doc, who was known to offer that challenge more than once if a really great deed for the common good had occurred. Part of the math on this is to have a carrot to further push the party for reasons on why they should want to do something. The party is now 8th level and rather powerful, and, they fell into the habit of asking, nay demanding a payoff in order to do something. So, yah we 'll do this in exchang for some always increasing powerful magic item, as if everyone always has some mega thing they do not send into the field in the hope that some heroes will happen by.

Do the challenge, if you "die" then you pop out, as if awoken from a dream; if successful you get a scroll to go up one level.

Sold.

I have drafted in the Mud Sorcerers Tomb cause it is nasty and because mud is a combine of earth and water and my focus for this campaign is elementals.

First and foremost, as a DM I have never been a fan of the TPK possibility of an adventure. Like Captain Kirk with the Kobayashi Maru, I do not like a no win situation.This is not to say characters do not die. When they do it is almost always from an unfortunate series of events. The death of Calori in the basement of Volcano Caves (see that post) was an unfortunate set of events including his rolling poorly on several rolls in a row.

It has plenty of traps and such along with several situations that are completely unavoidable, such as what befell Khalil, which I will get to in due course. However, it is an exciting module. It is because I rue that your gonna die scenario that I decided to use it in place of the Fane of the Egg (as part of the Egg of the Phoenix set). The party had not saved the world but had certainly helped stem the tide of evil and caused it to flow differently and so would be rewarded by, in effect, a chance to pull excalibur from the stone. A challenge offered only to those special elite who make a difference. Make it through the Fane of the Egg and each of you will receive a scroll to advance one level in experience. Fail and you are merely kicked out of this situation.

Second, it is a great reward to me to see that we are now at the point that the whole party is taking individual notes on almost everything. I view that as a compliment regarding the depths of the environment we have created together.

Third, everything is this campaign has been directed towards the Archomental. With that in mind I liberally change things to fit my needs. So, in the case of the Mud Sorcerer, mud is a mix of water and earth. We have met Olhydra (now long ago) and just found the olympic rings in the sunless garden, the ones that when so aligned 'summon' Ogremoch. In one of the bigger temple rooms, I will guess 26, I made certain to have the hieroglyphs detail how Tzolo is in fact the child of Olhydra and Ogremoch. This really helps to continue interlacing everything.

Fourth, I try as best possible to incorporate player stats as much as possible. And so if Embla wanted to pull off a nifty drop equipment, pull out this and fire I would have her roll percentiles on her strength, dexterity and level. There are many variations of this depending on what a character is looking to do. OMGosh did the party continuously roll well, sometimes against stupid odds. At one point Khalil tried a move to which I suggested a 4% chance of success. Boom. Done.

As a result, the party covered a tremendous amount of ground, found most of the things they were looking to find. Khalil did get transported via the pop up blades of room 15. This stunned the crowd into a realization that you can in fact die and get tossed out of this adventure. When we did get to room 26 (pretty sure) where the scrolls are hidden in the fake shin bones, we randomly rolled who looks at which scroll. Bummer for Khalil on that one as he was transformed into a butterfly, thankfully leaving all of his gear in a pile. His bags held two of the found keys. And so he is now 'outside' enjoying the company of his confreres Wasabi & Rhiannon and their host Maledoconious (Doc for short).

Lastly, it was an effort to get Embla and Elrick to try different things They are very hesitant players; it is handy to have Khalil and Trouv Tou available as they understand a good part of the game is about taking a chance, of trying things. So, I changed room 25 to be a sliding wall (which should have been room 19, but they skipped it and I needed a quick trap) whenever the scepter of the dead body was grabbed. Four times the Es kept grabbing at the scepter and then running from the collapsing wall. It was a trick to suggest they, I donno, move the body, or, grab at the whatever instead of the scepter. They finally did, and, I will have to consider other ways to get them to try things.

As DMs we have to sort of guide the ship, have a good overview of what is going on and where the party is going, in order to provide a decent challenge and a decent reward.

We got back into the Mudd Sorcerer at room 28, which lead to the hole in the wall and then further to the Giant Elephant. Embla (who had a great session) figured out to remove the red tusk and go back to screw that into the hole in the wall and thus unlock a further section of the temple. Another mummified body another secret door. This lead onto the final temple room and the Uzivoy boat that allows for travel on land, through land, on water. And here I inputted my DMedness. The party has missed the room through the Elephant's belly, and, the module called for Tsolo to be just a dead body. So, I substituted her for her sister, Tzila, who gave a good fight.

I had indicated that Tsolo was the offspring of two archomentals mating: Ogremoch (earth) and Olhydra (water) = Mudd.So, I made her into a Mudd elemental with interesting strengths and obvious weaknesses (a blasting gush of water would prove deadly, for example). She, Tsolo, I laid in the space beyond the elephant's belly.

So, back to the elephant room, where the columns read Tsolo Shall Vanquish Her Foes. In red ties on the bottom of the pool it read; Tsolo Shall Vanquish Her Foes. Embla was scanning the room and notices the mosaic on the belly had five letters: H F T V S and suggested they be pushed n this fashion: T S V H F thinking there must be a connection. She was right, the opportunity for the final battle and access to a scroll that would allow each surviving member to go up a level was right there. Unfortunately, the party was not convinced of that logic, discussed the matter and came up with a completely erroneous, totally bogus, why-would-you-think-that answer, and, got it wrong.

The sand of the temple began to collapsed and the party had to run for the exit.

For the campaign storyline, Doc was impressed with how far the party advanced, perhaps the furthest he has ever heard. It became apparent that our experience in the Fane was totally different than anyone else's, which were equally different. Therefore, if we do get to run the Fane of the Egg again this situation will be totally different (perhaps lending itself much better towards DCC 50).

As a review of the module, Mudd Sorcerer's Temple has some really neat features. I will maintain that good DMing involves looking through the module and making changes to better reflect your game. Some of the traps are nasty, and, the giveaways too easy. However, everything balanced out.

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